Riding the AI Wave: A Creative’s Journey

For many years, I have benefitted from the development of digital technology, providing content for the many innovators in the field. Writing about cutting edge technology was ideal for me, and innovations like smart technology and AI added to that, for a while.

More recently though, I have found that two of my favourite spheres of work and study have ceased to run parallel and have seemed to be turning to face off against each other with us caught in the middle. In the last few years, the success of large language models (LLMs) and GPTs have turned AI from an ally of the content creator into a fickle friend at best and a competitive enemy at worst.



A year and a half ago, I posted an article on Professor Michio Kaku’s assessment that, "AI is a glorified tape recorder," on Wireframe’s blog. He said it spliced human creations together in new ways and taking credit for them, and as a stubborn content creator, I broadly agreed with the feted futurist.

I could not remain anti-AI though; Partly due to memories of tomes like I Robot, Foundation and Banks's Culture series, as well as projects like input processing for Google Service Desk and marketing Leanfra AI. As we progressed to work with and market for a range of AI-oriented companies, I learned more about AI and got my head into some serious research.  This helped me realis what an innovative and important undertaking the development of modern generative AI based on large language models was.

When one of our industry clients advised me to "Ride the wave" of AI, I was inspired (as a surfer and kayaker) to take his advice. To not simply give up my passion, but to investigate this thing that was fundamentally changing my world.

How generative AI has helped Wireframe

Since then, the Wireframe team have been incorporating AI into our operations much more than before. I have been using Norton AI to develop and organise my digital workspace and create high-quality, truly bespoke images to match my writings. Meanwhile, our film producer has boosted the quantity and quality of her videos. It seems that, far from turning content creation into a production line and putting us out of business, AI is beginning to provide us with many new opportunities.

Problems for writers and wider society

Unfortunately, issues like making false statements and using content created by others are ethically challenging for AI, but the opportunities for creatives like me and society as a whole are too great to ignore. After all, you should "never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right", as Asimov wrote. We just need to figure out what is wrong and how we can resolve the problem.

Conclusion

As always, it is not the tool but the people behind it that are at the heart of the problem. Naturally, generative AI developers are managing their creations in ways that benefit them, and engaging with their most valuable clients for feedback. This is to be expected: After all, it’s basic human nature to do what is in your best interest. However, it is not what is in the best interest of the generative AI industry at large or any of those it serves, even the valuable clients that businesses are engaging extensively with.

Generative AI businesses need to base their models and updates on a better system of input, engagement and feedback to move forward. Come back same time, next week to discover our suggestions on how this can be done.

The opportunities for AI service providers and their large language models are amazing, but no one is looking to realise them because the profits aren't as easily accessible. These generative AI systems could be beautiful. They could change the world. But beauty and progress take time and investment.